Streetsblog Capitol Hill

A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control found that while 10.5 percent of all trips in the United States are made on foot, pedestrians made up 13 percent of all traffic fatalities between 2001 and 2010. During those years, a staggering 47,392 pedestrians were killed on American roadways. In 2010, the per capita pedestrian fatality rate in America was more than double the rate in the UK and Germany — 13.9 deaths per million people compared to 6.7 and 5.8, respectively, according to figures compiled by the British government [XLS].

Minority groups and the elderly suffer disproportionately from dangerous conditions for walking. Image: NYTimes

The CDC report also highlights the social dimensions of this public health epidemic. Not everyone is affected equally by dangerous walking conditions in America. Elderly and minority populations are at the greatest risk, researchers found, while men of all demographics were two-and-a-half times more likely than women to be killed by a car while walking.

Men over age 85 and women between the ages of 75 and 84 suffer a disproportionate share of pedestrian deaths. These high-risk age cohorts were each more than three times as likely to be killed while walking than people between 15 and 24 years of age. As a result, CDC officials predict overall pedestrian fatality rates may increase in the coming years as the American population ages.

Pedestrian fatalities also took a high toll on Native American, Hispanic, and black populations. Native American men were four times more likely than white men to be killed while walking, and the fatality rates for black and Hispanic men are about twice that of white men. The disparity was less pronounced for women, but even so, Native American women are roughly twice as likely as white women to be the victim of a fatal pedestrian crash, while Hispanic and black women are 50 percent more likely.

The discrepancy may be partly explained by the fact that more people of color tend to live in urban areas, where residents walk more and are more exposed to traffic violence as pedestrians. (The lower level of driving in cities means that urban residents are less exposed to traffic violence overall.) Another factor is that black and Hispanic families are much less likely to own a car than white families, so these populations also walk more than the public overall.

From a policy perspective, one implication is that any initiative that increases risk to pedestrians — increasing speed limits, for example — is likely to have inequitable consequences across society.

Yes, traffic fatalities have been (mostly) going down, but as long as cyclist and pedestrian fatalities keep going up, we can’t truly say our streets and roads are getting safer. That’s the message from 68 members of Congress to one pretty receptive audience: Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

Lawmakers say states should be making sure their streets are safe for everyone. Photo: Tiffany Robinson, Ped-Bike Images

In their letter to LaHood, sent on Saturday, the 68 lawmakers – including nine Republicans — note that between 2010 and 2011, driving got safer: Roadway fatalities dropped 2 percent overall; 4.6 percent for occupants of cars and light trucks. But bicyclist fatalists went up 9 percent and pedestrian deaths rose 3 percent in the same time period.

LaHood announced earlier this month that U.S. DOT would be holding two bike safety summits this year. But the lawmakers want the agency to go further. And they didn’t just ask in vague terms for increased attention to safety. They got specific: U.S. DOT should create “separate performance measures for non-motorized and motorized users.”

If it sounds like they might have gotten some ideas from people deep inside the bike advocacy world, well, you got that right. Hundreds of Bike Summit participants made this their key “ask” earlier this month when they visited their representatives on Capitol Hill. Apparently their representatives listened.

SAFETEA-LU, passed in 2005, required states to set goals for reducing overall fatalities but included no specific reporting requirements for biking and walking. Without state attention, vulnerable road users have become even more vulnerable, with fatalities increasing both in real numbers and as a percentage of roadway fatalities, according to Caron Whitaker of the League of American Bicyclists.

One-third of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee signed on to the letter, giving DOT a good sense how the committee wants them to interpret MAP-21. “When Congress set performance measures areas, they were saying, ‘These are the things we are going to judge you on,’” Whitaker said in an email. “If bicyclists and pedestrians aren’t included in the performance measures, we risk being left behind.”

“In over half of all states, more than 10 percent of roadway fatalities are bicyclists and pedestrians but yet only seven states report investing in any bicycling and walking safety projects,” she added.

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As this video from Transit Miami shows, crossing the street on foot can be hazardous. A new law in Ohio is a step in the wrong direction.

The country’s seventh most populous state is rolling back pedestrians’ right-of-way within crosswalks when they have a walk signal. The state of Ohio recently updated its Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, putting in place new limits on people’s legal rights to walk without risk of being at fault in the event of a collision.

The new rules require pedestrians to yield to cars turning right or left on red at the beginning of the green signal. Columbus-area cycling advocate Patricia Kovacs, in a petition she is circulating, said the state of Ohio allows for walk signals as short as four seconds. Surrendering right of way at the beginning of the walk cycle might mean missing out on a chance for pedestrians to cross the street safely and legally.

“When is it okay for the pedestrian to start to walk?” said Portland-based attorney Ray Thomas, who specializes in bike and pedestrian law. “The law doesn’t say.”

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You wouldn’t necessarily expect NASCAR, the very embodiment of the macho fast-car fetish in America, to go to bat for pedestrians. But in preparation for yesterday’s “Super Bowl of stock car racing,” the Daytona 500, NASCAR teamed up with the Florida Department of Transportation to help promote pedestrian safety around the event.

The Florida State Highway Patrol did extra enforcement for both pedestrians and motorists at the Daytona 500 this weekend. Image: CFNews13

But how deep is NASCAR’s commitment to pedestrian safety — or FDOT’s, for that matter?

Florida is the most dangerous state in the nation for pedestrians, according to an analysis by Transportation for America [PDF]. FDOT Secretary Anath Prasad told the local media that the agency is working hard to change that.

“We have doubled our efforts in making sure that we turn around those statistics,” he said. “It is unacceptable in our great state.”

Part of that campaign was the plan to step up enforcement for both pedestrians and motorists around the NASCAR event, which was expected to bring some 250,000 people to the area Sunday. FDOT even sponsored a car, driven by Joe Nemechek, emblazoned with the words “Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow,” a slogan used in the FDOT educational campaign to reduce pedestrian deaths.

As part of the campaign, FDOT dispensed some basic, common-sense advice to drivers and pedestrians and said it was seeking improvements to “engineering, enforcement and emergency response.”

We’re glad to hear Florida at least making a verbal commitment to address the grievous problem of pedestrian deaths. But we’d like to see the state get more serious about the engineering portion of this campaign — which would mean not building intersections that look like this.

And while we’re talking enforcement, it’d also be nice if Prasad — who, after recently being ticketed for speeding, raised the speed limit on the very street where he was caught — would practice what he preaches. There is a culture of disrespect to pedestrians in the Sunshine State that seems to pervade all walks of life, from the DOT secretary to the police to average drivers.

If FDOT’s “education campaign” amounts to nothing more than ticketing a few pedestrians — classic victim-blaming — it could, in fact, worsen the structural inequality that makes those on foot so vulnerable.

Instead of an educational campaign about the importance of using crosswalks, how about a few more actual crosswalks, and shorter ones, with pedestrian refuge islands? I think they’d be happy to have them in Miami’s Brickell neighborhood. That would be real progress for Florida pedestrians. Would FDOT get behind that?

NASCAR has other problems. Dozens of spectators were injured at Saturday’s Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway, the latest incident in which fans have been harmed as the result of a crash.

Well, it was a tough competition for America’s Worst Intersection, with a lot of worthy contenders — the kind of intersections that would make an Olympic sprinter nervous. But the people have spoken — 468 of them — and in the end it wasn’t even close. Our winner is Omaha, Nebraska’s intersection of 132nd Street, Industrial Road, Millard Avenue, and L Street.

#1. Omaha, Nebraska: 132nd Street, Industrial Road, Millard Avenue, and L Street

Take one final look at this sad excuse for a public space, featuring no crosswalks and only the faintest traces of a sidewalk. Special thanks again to John Amdor for the submission. Fully 29 percent of voters, or 136 people, voted for this intersection.

In Transportation for America’s 2011 “Dangerous by Design” report on pedestrian fatalities, Nebraska actually ranked 48th, making it one of the “safest.” But we suspect that’s mostly because walking is unusual in this state. Looking at this picture you can understand why.

#2. St. Louis, Missouri: 141 and Gravois Road

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Image: Google Earth/GGW

Earlier this week we looked at the intersection of Route 355 and Shady Grove Road near Rockville, Maryland, flagged by Ben Ross at Greater Greater Washington for being especially hostile to pedestrians, even though it’s the site of a bus stop. We asked if it might be the worst intersection in the country and put out a call for readers to send their nominations for the title.

As some readers pointed out, the Rockville intersection at least has sidewalks on all four corners and some refuges for pedestrians caught mid-crossing, so it certainly can’t be nation’s worst. Several other submissions landed in our inbox where the engineers let the sheer car-centricity of the roads overwhelm the meager provisions for pedestrians even more.

Wouldn’t you know it: We received three nominations from Florida, which Transportation for America has singled out as the most dangerous state for pedestrians. One reader sent us this stunner: State Route 7 and Forest Hill Boulevard in Wellington, Florida. From this satellite picture, it looks like a walk around this intersection would cross 45 lanes, plus — is that a bike lane? Wouldn’t want to be in the middle of that on a Cannondale:

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In 2006, 14-year old Kristen Bowen was killed on the train tracks near her house in the Chicago suburb of Villa Park. She was using a well-worn shortcut across the tracks that cut her residential neighborhood off from the school and the park they used. Four years after Kristen’s death, her twin sister committed suicide by stepping in front of a train near where Kristen was struck. Those tracks are covered with balloon memorials and crosses, commemorating those who have died.

Walter Gaffney holds a picture of his 17-year-old daughter, Mary, along the tracks where she was killed in Hyattsville, Maryland, a hotspot for pedestrian deaths. Photo: Post-Dispatch/David Carson

The Federal Railroad Administration estimates that 500 people die every year walking on railroad tracks [PDF]. But who bears the responsibility of preventing these deaths? Was it Kristen’s responsibility to avoid trespassing where freight trains roar past? Her town’s responsibility to erect a fence before being spurred on by her death? Should planners have recognized that it’s human nature for people to take a calculated risk to reach the amenities they used? Or was it the railroads’ responsibility to identify where these deaths happen and try to mitigate the risk?

A recent series by reporter Todd Frankel at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch makes clear that the responsibility is shared. But he also points a finger at the railroads, which have been obstructionist as others try to address the issue:

A few years ago, when the [Federal Railroad Administration] tried to get a better sense of who was walking on the tracks — by looking at trespassing cases that didn’t end in a casualty — regulators asked the railroads for help. They wanted the railroads’ internal trespassing reports. The railroads refused.

The agency recently was forced to concede defeat, noting that it “failed to garner the necessary support from the rail industry to conduct the study.”

Then there was the issue of where the casualties occurred.

For years, the agency required railroads to report only the county of a trespassing death or injury. Not the city. Not the closest milepost on the railroad system. Having so few details made it hard to identify hot spots for trespassing, said Ron Ries, director of the agency’s Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Safety and Trespass Prevention Division.

We reported in the spring that FRA guidance on pedestrian safety at railroad tracks focused only on approved crossings, ignoring the risks of so-called “trespassing” that occurs outside of those areas.

Only in the last year did federal law require railroads to provide GPS coordinates of the crashes. Before that, their crash reports only listed the county where the crash happened, making it impossible to identify where these crashes are clustered. Now, with better information, some danger “hotspots” became apparent.

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Being a pedestrian in Phoenix is dangerous business. This is a place that comes by its reputation as a car-friendly city honestly. Phoenix pedestrians account for just 2 percent of collisions, but 42 percent of fatalities. That’s the fourth-highest share of overall traffic deaths in the country, behind three cities with much more walking — New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

Pedestrians in Phoenix account for a grossly disproportionate share of fatal crashes. Image: City of Phoenix

But Phoenix city officials are beginning to reassess the position of pedestrians in the transportation hierarchy, taking steps to help protect the city’s most vulnerable road users. The city’s goals are lofty: a 10 percent reduction in pedestrian deaths each year, with zero by 2020.

The actual pedestrian safety ideas the city is pursuing, however, are not nearly as bold as what officials are doing in, say, Chicago, which has also set the goal of eliminating pedestrian deaths. Phoenix’s pedestrian safety plans rely heavily on education — both of pedestrians (especially the school-aged) and of motorists, not so much on changes to street design.

One of Phoenix’s main tools to improve the safety of walking is a special style of traffic signal developed by engineers in neighboring Tucson. Phoenix is installing ”High Intensity Activated Crosswalks,” or HAWKs, as they’re called, at some of the intersections that are most dangerous to pedestrians but might not warrant a full traffic signal, said Kerry Wilcoxon of Phoenix’s Traffic Department. The HAWKs are activated when the pedestrian presses the signal, giving vehicles a yellow and then a red light and pedestrians a clear path through the roadway.

But downtown advocate Sean D. Sweat, a representative of the Central City Village Planning Commission, says the city could be doing a lot more.

“To me, HAWKs are a bandaid to a more fundamental problem with the street,” he said. “I don’t think they — our streets transportation department, our City Hall — right now actually gets it. They talk the talk, but we’re not seeing it on the ground.”

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Despite the national outrage over the Raquel Nelson case, officials in metro Atlanta continue to treat pedestrians like criminals.

Simply crossing the street can, and often does, land Atlanta area pedestrians a citation. Photo: Creative Loafing

Last Wednesday, a 35-year-old woman was hospitalized after being struck by a vehicle while attempting to cross a road in northwest Atlanta. A local Fox affiliate reports that the woman suffered injuries and is in “stable” condition. But police have already decided she, not the driver, was at fault. The victim is being charged with ”pedestrian in the roadway,” a legal term for “jaywalking.”

Sally Flocks, director of Atlanta’s pedestrian advocacy organization, PEDS, says it is not unusual for police officers in the region to cite and fault pedestrians involved in collisions, even as they’re lying in hospital beds.

“For the cops, I think it gives them closure” to fault one of the parties, she said. “They could cite the driver for failing to show due care. They tend not to do that.”

Part of the problem is that Georgia has one of the most draconian pedestrian laws in the country. Last year, the Georgia legislature passed a law that made it illegal for pedestrians and runners to use the roadway if there are sidewalks on the road.

“It’s being interpreted by police officers to make it illegal to cross the street,” Flocks said.

The sad fact is that many of Atlanta’s sidewalks are in terrible condition; the city had to pay $4 million in injury settlements last year as a result. Meanwhile, in the suburbs, pedestrians get cited for crossing the street outside of a marked or unmarked crosswalk. But “jaywalking” laws aren’t really designed to be applied outside of downtown areas, Flocks said.

PEDS documented at least one case earlier this year where police misinterpreted the law and wrongly charged a pedestrian. The organization has since begun a campaign to properly inform police officers and judges that every intersection is a crosswalk, even if it’s not marked. Under Georgia law, pedestrians are only required to be inside a crosswalk if they are between two signalized intersections, Flocks said.

Even worse, despite discrimination claims around the Raquel Nelson case, local pedestrian advocates have reason to believe the law is being applied unevenly. Flocks said the citations tend to be concentrated in low-income and Hispanic neighborhoods. Streetsblog has submitted a public records request with the Atlanta Police Department inquiring about the races of those cited for “pedestrian in a roadway.” We will report those results when we receive them.

Atlanta was named the 11th most dangerous metro for walking last year by Transportation for America.

Last week, U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood helped NYC transpo commish Janette Sadik-Khan launch a new phase of the “LOOK!” campaign, with pavement markings instructing texting pedestrians to wake the hell up. He made a comment that made its way into his blog post about the event, as well as other media reports on the event, and it caught the attention of Streetsblog NYC’s crack reporting team.

Sadik-Khan and LaHood show off new sidewalk safety markings in NYC, just after LaHood said 80 percent of dead pedestrians were victims of their own jaywalking. Photo: Stephen Miller

What LaHood said was that many pedestrian deaths that occurred nationwide in 2010 were easily preventable, as “nearly 80 percent happened because someone was jaywalking.”

That hits like a ton of bricks, doesn’t it? Drivers dart around in powerful, heavy, dangerous contraptions at high speeds while texting, tweeting, eating, and shuffling through their iPods, and it’s the person hoofing it that’s to blame? Eighty percent of the time?

Turns out he was misquoting some data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which showed that in 2010, 79 percent of pedestrian fatalities occurred at non-intersections. Someone on LaHood’s staff looked at that statistic and figured “jaywalking” was pretty much a synonym for whatever was happening there.

A U.S. DOT spokesperson acknowledged that LaHood was referring to the NHTSA numbers and said, “He was not speaking about the fault or cause of those accidents.”

I don’t know who was ruled at fault in all of those crashes, but I do know for sure that being killed at a non-intersection doesn’t necessarily mean you were jaywalking. Maybe a drunk driver swerved off the road and onto the sidewalk. Or a motorist didn’t look when pulling out of an alley or driveway — U.S. DOT confirmed that curb cuts don’t count as “intersections” in this case. Besides, not all crosswalks are at intersections.

And then there are cases, like that of Raquel Nelson in Georgia, where there simply is no intersection. In suburban areas, you can walk half a mile before you get to an intersection or even a crosswalk. It’s not that no one ever needs to walk across the street, it’s just that planners have ruled that they must take their lives into their own hands when they do.

NHTSA already laid enough blame on pedestrian crash victims with its report, by focusing on how often they were intoxicated. For the secretary himself to say at a major press event that fully four out of five people mowed down by cars were “jaywalking” and therefore at fault is just wrong. It obscures the truth that motorists —  not pedestrians – cause the most havoc on our streets.